Three empty Glasgow homes to be brought back into use as social housing

The move is the latest in a programme that has brought thousands of empty homes back to productive use in Glasgow.

The council’s Contracts & Property Committee this week gave the green light to the compulsory purchase order (CPO) of these homes, all of which are tenement flats.

The first empty flat to be CPO’d is at 1610 Paisley Road West (Flat 4), which has been unoccupied since September 2023, and currently fails both tolerable and repairing standards and was the source of water ingress damage to commercial properties underneath.

Following approval of the CPO by Scottish Ministers, and after bringing the flat back to acceptable standards, Southside Housing Association will use the property as emergency homelessness accommodation. The housing association owns the majority of flats in the close, and these are also used for emergency homelessness accommodation.

The empty flats in Dennistoun, at 3/01 and 3/02 45 Aberfoyle Street, have lain unoccupied since March 2017 and November 2012, respectively. Flat 3/01 has not been legally inherited by anyone, and following a fire in March 2016, the flat was badly damaged and has since been neglected and allowed to deteriorate.

Flat 3/02 was also badly damaged in the same fire and has similarly been neglected and allowed to deteriorate, with the company owning it being dissolved in 2018. Both properties are a significant blight on the neighbouring homes, and if the CPOs for both flats are approved by Scottish Ministers, Milnbank Housing Association will undertake the necessary repairs to both properties and bring them back to productive use and allocate them to homeless people or families.

Councillor Ruairi Kelly, convener for Housing and Development at Glasgow City Council, said: “In the face of a housing emergency in Glasgow and many other places, a very welcome recent success story in the city is the scale of our Empty Homes programme, which has seen thousands of empty homes brought back to life in recent years. The compulsory purchase of these three homes will allow local housing associations to provide much-needed accommodation to homeless people or families.”